Notes: Finally, baseball is back from the All Star break. The last time the Pirates went to Milwaukee they had just gotten to .500 at 25-25. They’re record since then has been a lights out 23-12. Milwaukee was 5 games under then and is still 5 games under now. Ryan Braun leads his team in almost as many hitting categories as Andrew McCutchen leads the Pirates

Underwhelming! Estrada’s actually pitched pretty well since returning from a quad injury. Correia’s been put in this spot so that his softer stuff can serve as a buffer between the similar repertoires of McDonald and…

I’m looking forward to seeing this one live. That’s right! I’m road tripping to Milwaukee this weekend with my wife. We’ll be visiting the esteemable @Wezen_ball and his lovely fiance. After that we’re going to spend the rest of the week in Chicago, so postings may not fall on a regular schedule, if at all. Expect plenty of pictures when I can upload them.

Like many of you, I have a lot to be thankful for. One of the things I’m blessed by are the many connections I’ve made on Twitter and with the writers of various blogs. In the spirit of that; here’s an article I helped research written by my friend Larry at Wezen-ball.com. Larry was instrumental in encouraging me to start writing on my own. A quick excerpt:

Wondering if any batter has ever made all 3 outs in an inning. Seems unlikely to even get 3 PA. Anyone? @wezen_ball? @robneyer?

I didn’t know the answer and I was at work (though it was lunchtime), so I wasn’t able to run a query on my Retrosheet database. It seemed like a question that was probably researched before, but a quick Google search didn’t turn anything up for me. And, like David said, it seemed unlikely that anyone would even have three plate appearances in an inning.”

So thanks to Larry, his Terrific Girlfriend, Will Carroll, Steve Mizer, Ben Wright and all of the other internet friends I’ve been able to meet in person over the last year. But more than anything else, thanks to Marianne; who recently upgraded from Wonder Girlfriend to Fiance. She’s the best partner I could ever have.

Please take the time to let those around you know what an influence they’ve had on your life.

I took a cue from Twitter pal Larry Granillo (@wezen_ball) and started my own blog. I don’t really know what it will become yet but I’d been thinking about starting one for a while. I expect lots of baseball thoughts will appear here along with hockey. NFL and college basketball will appear when those seasons are relevant too.